Kasilof, AK

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Before the construction of Kasilof’s first real schoolhouse and its 1932 opening with Enid McLane at the head of the classroom, there was a brief moment on the educational timeline of the area, and another teacher, that merits attention.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: In the early 1920s in New York’s rural Oneida County, the Browne, Cole and Ingersoll families became acquainted. The Coles were raising foxes at Alder Creek. The Brownes were operating a dairy farm in Remsen. And teenagers Marion Ingersoll (from Steuben) and Milton Cole were falling in love. In the mid- to late 1920s, the Brownes and Coles hatched a plan to move to Kasilof, Alaska, acquire a homestead and start fox farming there. Marion Ingersoll tagged along, pla

AUTHOR’S NOTE: On Sept. 25, 2025, Brent Johnson, one of the most authoritative voices on the history of the Kasilof and Cohoe areas on the Kenai Peninsula, sent me screenshots from two 1929 Illinois newspaper articles. He appended to the attachments this note: “Prior to seeing these newspaper articles, I was pretty confident that Enid McLane was Kasilof’s first teacher and that the first school year was 1932-33. The school building McLane used was owned by Abram Erickson n